The breakfast marks the end of Will's second visit to Australia to speak at 'Reality' community events in Orange, Bathurst and Lithgow. On his first visit in 2010, Will Graham spoke at meetings in the north-west of NSW, focusing on Tamworth, Gunnedah and Moree. The success of those meetings led to this second visit.
"Like his grandfather, Will only comes at the invitation of local churches," said Jorge Rodrigues, CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association's Australia office.
Billy Graham's first visit to Australia in 1959, is recognised as one of the most successful of his preaching career with 3,362,240 Australians attending a service or relay of a service during his four month evangelism campaign, a third of Australia's then population of just over ten million.
Research carried out on the 50th anniversary of the first Billy Graham Crusade shows that those influenced by the Graham Crusades are still heavily represented in the leadership and personnel of missionary organisations such as the Church Missionary Society (CMS), and Wycliffe Bible Translators.
Peter Jensen, the present Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, often recalls his conversion as a teenagerâ€"alongside his brother Phillipâ€"during the 1959 Sydney Crusades. A list of present-day clergy who were converted at the '59 Crusades would be too long to print. Needless to say, much of Australia's present-day church leadership took root in the fertile soil of the 1959 crusades. (Mike and Nikki Thompson, Remembering '59 DVD – Olive Tree Media)
In the steps of his father, Franklin Graham, who today leads both the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan's Purse worldwide, Will Graham is also called to preach the gospel.
"When I was 15, that was when I got on my knees and said, 'Lord, whatever you want me to do, I'll do it for you'," Will said.
After attending Liberty University, in Lynchburg, Virginia, Will enrolled in South Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, during which time he was called to pastor a church near Raleigh. It was during this time that Will received a phone call from the Billy Graham office in Canada in 2004.
"The person on the line said, 'Will, we want you to start doing evangelism and we've got some things for young people. Would you think about doing that?' I said, 'I'm not sure. I like being a pastor and I don't want to do it just because I'm Billy Graham's grandson.' But the caller pressed me and asked if I could come up to Canada and they would support me every step of the way,'" said Will.
So he decided to accept the invitation. "It was the first thing I ever did publically for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association," he said.
Since then, Will has preached throughout the United States and Canada at crusade-style events called Celebrations, as well as in the United Kingdom, the Philippines and Kenya. This year, he will speak in Canada, India, Australia and Thailand.
Supporters and friends of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association are invited to attend the breakfast to hear the latest news on the continuing ministry of the organisation in Australia.
The breakfast will be held at 7.30am, (registration at 7.00am), on Monday, May 14 at Wesley Mission Conference Centre, 220 Pitt Street, Sydney.
For more information, visit www.billygraham.org.au